It’s that way for two reasons, of which the second is (I
believe) far more important:

·Adding commentary—say one paragraph per table, although some of
the more interesting comments might involve comparisons between chapters and
tables within chapters—would nearly double the length of the book, making it
much more expensive in print and much harder to work with as a PDF. (It would
also have taken a lot longer.)

·The book is primarily designed as a tool to help individual
public libraries tell their funding stories. Adding my comments
on what I found interesting in tables not only doesn’t automatically help that
effort, it could hinder it. Just as infographics tend to oversimplify data,
adding comments pointing to one aspect of a table tends to obscure the rest of
the table.

I do think there’s a lot to comment about in the book, possibly
at least one comment for each of the some 800 tables (taking each combined
expense table as two actual tables) and a few hundred comments on the
relationships between tables. There won’t be that many comments, to be sure,
partly because—when separated from the tables—it becomes repetitive to note the
extent to which a given table follows the “spend more, do more, continue to get
great value” theme.

I have been posting a few of those comments on Walt at Random (and some in shorter
form on social networks) and will probably continue to do so. Here, and in a
followup essay, I’ll offer those and some other comments. Some of this
commentary may not make complete sense without a copy of the book—and, of
course, I’d be delighted if you’d acquire such a copy, either as a $21.95 trade paperback, an $11.99 DRM-free PDF or a $31.50 hardbound book. (All
three versions have the same interior content.)

Most of this commentary is organized by chapter, followed by
some cross-chapter tidbits. Chapter 1 already includes commentary, so I’ll skip
right over that. What tends to be interesting about tables in chapters 3-19
(libraries by size of library) is, in part, how percentages differ from
those in Chapter 2—that is, the extent to which libraries of a given size
differ from overall norms. Sometimes, those differences are easily explainable.
I always find them interesting, and hope you do as well. But first…

Why No Graphs or Infographics?

Why is the book composed entirely of tables (with a small amount
of supporting text)? Isn’t it easier to interpret graphs? Or, better yet,
infographics?

As far as infographics are concerned, from most of them I’ve
seen, my sense is that they’re great at slanting a message and incredibly
inefficient in providing detail. You might be able to turn any given
table into an infographic; you might not. (It seems to be common for
infographics to be enormously large as well, which isn’t going to work in a
6x9" book—but that’s a different issue.)

Why not graphs? I love good graphs—but two things
argued against using them for this book:

·Compared to these tables, they’re inefficient in terms of
space. I might be able to do the equivalent of the budget tables in about twice
the space they currently occupy, were it not for the second factor. The
benchmark tables offer more kinds of information than I could reasonably fit
into a single graph.

·Graphs would be more confusing and less clear. The methods I’ve
used in the book provide buckets of similar libraries and compare different
buckets—but within any given bucket, there will be considerable variety, given
costs in different parts of the country, differences in library efficiency and
differences in how each library spends money to serve its community best.

Here’s an example: the
circulation per capita budget table from Chapter 11, halfway through the book,
covering libraries serving 6,800 to 8,699 potential patrons. Here’s the
circulation portion of the budget table:

$/cap

Circulation
per cap

25%

Med

75%

$73-$399

13.23

16.99

24.19

$53-$72

9.81

15.48

20.85

$43-$52

8.07

11.18

15.76

$36-$42

8.07

10.40

13.71

$31-$35

6.99

9.97

12.21

$26-$30

5.78

7.98

11.00

$21-$25

5.27

6.98

9.05

$17-$20

4.58

6.05

8.69

$12-$16

2.57

4.11

5.35

$5-$11

1.66

2.78

3.82

Overall

4.86

8.10

13.29

This shows unambiguously that, as library funding (expenditures
per capita) improves, so does circulation per capita as represented by the
median (the point at which half of libraries do that much or more). For that
matter, the 75%ile (top quarter of libraries) also improves unambiguously and,
except for one level, so does the 25%ile.

But the 75%ile for any given expenditure bracket is almost
always higher than the 25%ile for the next bracket up—and sometimes higher than
the median. A quarter of the libraries spending $17-$20.99 circulate more items
per capita than half of the libraries spending $21-$25.99. So a graph’s going
to be messy.

How messy? [See PDF versions; graph removed from HTML
version.]

Chapter 2: The Overall Picture

This chapter offers benchmark
and budget tables for the 8,659 libraries covered in the book (the appendix
specifies how many libraries were omitted and why).

Expenditures per capita

Way back in 1995, Iused “a
dime a day” as an expenditure measure for robust public libraries and “a nickel
a day” for good libraries, in both cases using 1990 data.

But that was then. A nickel a day—$18.25 per year—in 1990
dollars is $30.46 in 2010 dollars. A dime a day—$36.50 per year—in 1990 dollars
is $60.92 in 2010 dollars. More recently, I used “a buck a week” as a
reasonable target figure. That may not be equal to robust 1990 funding, but
it’s better than “good” funding.

What do we see for FY2010?

·Just under 20% of public libraries exceeded a buck a week: 1,706
(19.75) had expenditures per capita between $53 and $399.99. Roughly half of
those spent between $73 and $399.99; half spent $53 to $72.99

·Nearly half of the libraries (4,240, or 49%) spent at least $31
per year, exceeding the 2010 equivalent of a nickel a day.

I’ve informally thought of the two top brackets as being
“well-funded” and the next three ($43-$52.99, $36-$42.99, $31-$35.99, each with
almost exactly 10% of libraries) as being “reasonably well-funded.” But, of
course, that doesn’t take into account state and local variations in costs.

Unfortunately, that
leaves just over half of the libraries below $31 per week. I’m inclined to
think of the bottom two brackets (807 libraries spending $5 to $11.99 and 881
spending $12 to $16.99) as being badly funded, and the next three (756
libraries spending $17 to $20.99, 942 spending $21 to $25.99 and 954 spending
$26 to $30.99) as having mediocre funding.

Looking at the median benefit ratio for each spending
bracket, you see (as you’d expect) that benefit ratios go up as spending goes
down, but not in a linear fashion. If libraries that can only spend $5 to
$11.99 per capita did not have unusually high benefit ratios, they’d be
in even worse shape than they are. These libraries of necessity make each
dollar go absurdly far, most likely relying heavily on volunteers and hoping to
keep less-adequate collections going a little longer. Libraries that serve
their communities very well and are funded to do so, especially those spending
$73 or more per capita, should have lower benefit ratios, as more of
their funding is likely to go to things that don’t show up in IMLS reports
(adult literacy, ESL, community meeting rooms, makerspaces, etc., etc.)

The median benefit ratio
for the best-funded libraries is 3.49, while for the worst funded (which spend
one-seventh as much per capita, roughly) is 7.26, just over twice as much. In
between, the range is even narrower: from 4.45 for libraries spending
$55-$72.99 to 6.29 for libraries spending $12-$16.99.

Maybe this will make the point more clearly:

·The midpoint for the third lowest spending bracket ($17-$20) is
$18.50 per capita spending. The median benefit ratio for that bracket is 6.17,
meaning that a "typical" library with that level of funding would
provide $114 per capita in countable benefits.

·The midpoint for the third highest spending bracket
($43-$52) is $47.50 and the median benefit ratio for that bracket is 4.82,
meaning that a "typical" library with that level of funding would
provide $229 per capita in countable benefits. The library is spending 2.6
times as much per capita and yielding twice as much in IMLS-reported countable
benefits. That's a really good return for improved funding.

The bottom line: Libraries that are better funded continue to
yield superlative value, even as better funding reduces the strain on employees
and collections and allows for special programs and other features that aren’t
readily countable.

This may be a good place to stress a message that the book’s
reliance on countable metrics and tables could obscure: A good public library’s
importance to its community isn’t measured by the number of reference
questions, circulation, program attendance or open hours. Those numbers are
countable background to what’s truly important: The array of individual stories
of how a public library changes and enriches the lives of its patrons and the
health of its community. One reference transaction may seem to have trivial merit;
another may have life-changing consequences.

Open hours

In some ways, this metric and the one that follows are so
heavily linked to size of library that the overall numbers may not make much
sense. Still, if a 62-hour week is a reasonable goal for a good single-location
public library (e.g., 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 10 to 5 Friday and
Saturday and 1 to 5 Sunday), it’s sad that only 28% of libraries were open at
least 3,100 hours (counting all outlets) in FY10. At the opposite
extreme, 28% of libraries were open fewer than 1,822 hours (35 hours a week),
with 8% open fewer than 1,041 hours (that is, 20 hours a week or less). The
median for all libraries is 2,400 hours or about 46 hours per week—but again,
that’s adding all outlets.

There’s no clear
correlation between expenditures per capita and open hours in the overall
picture. When you look at expenditure brackets, there is a
correlation—but it’s vague and a bit sloppy. So, for example, the median for
libraries spending $26-$30 per capita (2,357 hours) is a little higher than
that for libraries spending $21-$25 (2,285)—but the median for libraries
spending $36-$42 (2,408) is a bit lower than for libraries spending
$31-$35 (2,428).

For this metric, chapters 3 through 19 are more meaningful.

Personal computers with internet access

This raw-count metric is also
likely to depend heavily on library size, and it’s one where brackets have
considerably different numbers of libraries because of the data. A mere 5% of
libraries (mostly, presumably, library systems) have at least 100 PCs—as
compared to 18% with 6 to 8 PCs (the largest group). I find the narrow range of
median expenditures across number-of-PCs brackets a little surprising: the
median for 20-39 PCs is $34.65 and the median for 0-3 PCs is $27.46,
four-fifths as much.

Circulation per capita

By my reckoning, the largest piece of easily-calculable public
library benefits is still circulation: 58% of the total. Circulation per capita
correlates very strongly with funding per capita. That makes sense:
Libraries with better funding are typically open more hours (so people can
borrow items), have better and more contemporary collections (so people want
to borrow more items) and are likely to have better displays, reader’s advisory
and other features (so people are enticed to borrow items).

A quarter of the libraries circulate more than 12 items per
capita, a number I find encouraging, with 6% circulating more than 24. That’s
the same percentage—and the same number of libraries, 501—as those that barely
circulate at all, with 0 to 1.99 circs per capita.

Here, not only do expenditures per capita march in step
(fairly large steps) with circulation per capita, so do benefit ratios. That
is, the better-supported libraries represent better value relative to
spending as measured by circulation.

At the high extreme, the median benefit ratio for libraries
circulating 24 or more items per capita is 6.80 and the median expenditure is
$75.82. One notch down, 17-23.99 items per capita, the benefit ratio is a
little lower (6.14) and the expenditures per capita is significantly lower
($54.36).

That continues all the way down. For the 14% of libraries
circulating 6 to 7.99 items per capita, the median benefit ratio is 5.28 and
the expenditures per capita is $28.96; for the 16% with 4 to 5.99 circs per
cap, the benefit ratio is 5.21—and median expenditures are down to $22.53.

Looking at circulation from an expenditures viewpoint, the
numbers are equally clear in a manner that a graph might not show, since (as
you’d expect) some libraries circulate more items relative to funding than
others.

As you move down in
funding brackets from the highest ($73-$399, where median circulation per
capita is 18.88 and the 75%ile is 26.65) to the lowest ($5-$11, with 2.60
median per capita circulation and 75%ile of 3.74), there’s always, in
every one of the ten expenditure brackets, a drop for 25%ile, median, and
75%ile. But the brackets overlap: the 75%ile for libraries with $53-$72
expenditures per capita (19.46) is higher than the median for $73-$399, but
significantly lower than the top category’s 75%ile.

If your library spends $31-$35 per capita and circulates 9
items per capita, you’re just above average for your expenditure category, but
you’d be below average for libraries spending $36-$42 and in the top quartile
for libraries spending $21-$25. Would better funding result in more
circulation? There’s a strong case to be made.

Reference transactions per capita

There’s a common assumption that reference transactions have
declined over the years in public as well as academic libraries. That may be
reasonable: web resources make it much easier for patrons to answer more of
their own questions. It may also be true per capita for public
libraries—but the overall numbers are remarkably variable, going up some years,
down some years. So, for example, FY2010 is 0.2% lower than FY2009—but FY2009
is more than 2% higher than FY2008. It seems likely that today’s reference
questions are more difficult and more valuable than those of a decade ago; it
also seems likely that many of them are handled via digital means rather than
through visits to the reference desk.

Back in 1995, I posited that robust public libraries
averaged more than two reference transactions per capita and that strong ones
averaged 1.3 to two transactions. But only 9% of libraries averaged at least
two reference transactions per capita in FY2010, and only 10% more averaged
1.25 to 1.99 transactions. I suspect one reference question for every two
(potential) patrons may be a reasonable measure of fairly strong activity, and
just over half of the libraries did at least that much reference. There’s a
distinct correlation between expenditures per capita and reference
transactions. Perhaps better-funded libraries are able to staff reference desks
(or combined service desks) more consistently and offer roving reference and
responsive virtual reference.

At one extreme, libraries averaging two or more reference
transactions per capita had a median expenditure of $54.13 per capita;. At the
other, those averaging less than 0.06 (that is, fewer than six reference
questions per hundred patrons) had a median expenditure of $18.62. The
expenditures table once again shows consistent change: the more a library
spends, the more reference questions it’s likely to answer.

Program attendance per capita

Of course big libraries will have more programs than small
libraries and well-funded libraries are likely to have richer sets of diverse
programs than poorly funded ones. What’s a reasonable target for programming of
all sorts (noting that the definition of a program may vary)?

By the numbers, it’s fairly clear. One-third of libraries
have at least one program attendance for every two potential patrons—and nearlyone-third have less than one program attendance for every five potential
patrons.

Once again, median
expenditures per capita goes up consistently with each increase in program
attendance. Skipping the top and bottom brackets, libraries averaging 0.11 to
0.19 attendance per capita had median expenditures of $22.10, while those
averaging 0.7 to 1.09 attendance spent $45.29. The expenditures table also
shows consistent bracket-by-bracket increases at all quartiles, more
consistency than I’d expect for what’s a relatively small portion of library
benefits. The overall median is one program attendance for every three
patrons—and only the first quartile of the highest expenditures category
($73-$399) is above the one-attendance mark, at 1.48.

Patron visits per capita

While this number is related to circulation per capita, it’s not
identical. Patrons visit libraries for reasons other than to borrow items, and
the number of items borrowed per visit can vary enormously. Four out of ten
libraries average at least one visit every two months across their entire
service area.

Expenditures per capita
rise consistently and fairly dramatically along with visits per capita, while
median benefit ratios vary across a tiny range. (Other than the top bracket, 13
or more visits per capita, the benefit ratio range is only 5.08 to 5.76, while
the median expenditures range from $12.66 for the lowest bracket to $74.00 for
the highest.) The budget table shows consistent increases at the median and
75%ile levels and may not require additional comment.

PC use per capita

Availability of personal computers with internet access is
nearly (but not quite) ubiquitous in U.S. public libraries and fairly clearly
an important service for many patrons. It’s another service where the
metric—frequency of reported use per patron—varies directly with library
spending per capita and where median benefit ratios vary in the same manner but
over a small range, unlike expenditures. (How nearly ubiquitous? 99.7% of the
8,659 libraries covered in the book have at least one PC for patron use; 28
libraries reported none. Another 60 of those omitted from the book, mostly very
small libraries, reported no PCs.)

The top bracket shows at
least 3.5 uses per capita. That bracket has fewer libraries than others, but
still 8% of the total. At the other extreme, 16% of the libraries show less
than one use for every two patrons. The median overall is 1.14 uses—and, as
you’d expect given the consistency of the metric brackets, median use for each
budget category consistently increases. The one-use-per-capita breakpoint is
$26: That is, the median for $26-$30 budgets is 1.15 while that for $21-$25
budgets is 0.97. (The 75%ile, marking the bottom of the top quarter of
libraries for a given budget category, is more than one use per capita for all
but the lowest budget category—but it’s up to more than four uses for
the highest.)

PCs per thousand patrons

This derivative measure may be more telling than the earlier
number of PCs. At one extreme, 810 libraries have at least five PCs per
thousand patrons (which could, of course, be one PC for a library
serving 200 patrons); at the other, 977 have less than 0.5 PCs per thousand
patrons. While the metric-expenditure relationship is once again consistent,
it’s over a relatively narrow range. Omitting extremes, median expenditures
range from $25.77 (libraries with 0.5 to 0.79 PCs per thousand patrons) to
$36.83 (libraries with 3 to 4.99 PCs per thousand patrons), a much narrower
range than for most metrics. The median overall is 1.3—and here, the budget
table’s interesting because every expenditures bracket, even the lowest,
shows at least one-quarter of the libraries with more than one PC per thousand
patrons. (All but the two lowest have at least half the libraries with more
than one PC per thousand patrons.)

Perhaps the narrow range of median expenditures deserves
comment. It’s not that expenditures for libraries cover a narrow range—clearly,
they don’t. What appears to be true is that, at any level of PC availability
per capita, libraries range broadly over expenditure levels, such that the
midpoint—the median figure—is similar at all levels of the metric benchmark.

Circulation and visits per hour

Circulation and visits per capita show how heavily a library
system is used. Circulation and visits per open hour show how busy a
library system is—and how busy its outlets are. At one extreme, one out of ten
libraries and library systems does booming business, averaging at least 110
circulations per hour (for a four-branch system, that means 440 circulations
per hour). At the other, 15% of the libraries and systems average fewer than
six circulations per hour or one every ten minutes. The median is 22.8, a
little more than one circulation every three minutes. The correlation between
expenses and circulations per hour is inconsistent.

The budget table for circulation per hour is all over the
place, and since poorly-funded libraries are likely to be open fewer hours,
that’s not too surprising. Although the median does rise with each higher funding
bracket, the 75%ile for the lowest bracket ($5-$11.99) is higher than the
median for the fourth highest bracket ($36-$42.99).

As for visits per hour, I’m not sure how much there is to
say. The median overall is 14.87, that is, one patron every four minutes. But
the 75%ile is 37.32: that is, one out of four libraries has more than a visit
every two minutes. And, sigh, the 25%ile is 6.6: one out of four
libraries has only about one visitor every nine minutes.

That’s possibly more than needs to be said about overall
numbers. Let’s look at libraries by size groups, with fewer comments in each
group.

Chapter 3: Libraries Serving Fewer Than 700

These are 501 libraries serving very small communities with at
least 10 hours per week of a librarian and at least $5 per capita in funding.
Another 172 libraries serving fewer than 700 patrons (but not meeting the other
criteria or spending $400 or more per capita) were omitted.

Expenditures per capita

These are generally fairly well-funded libraries on a per capita
basis: nearly half these libraries (48%) spend at least $43 per capita, and
more than one in five spend $73 or more. Benefit ratios are consistently high,
from 5.4 for the best-funded libraries to an extreme ten or more for the least
well-funded.

Open hours

It’s not surprising that none of these libraries is open 4,000
hours or more. Maybe it’s not surprising that nearly two-thirds of them are in
the lowest bracket, open 99 to 1,040 hours, with only 6% open at least 35 hours
per week. While the benchmark table shows no correlation between expenditures
and hours (mostly because libraries are so concentrated in the bottom three
hours brackets), the budget table does: Better-funded libraries show
higher medians consistently throughout the table, from 588 hours median for the
worst-funded libraries to 1,195 or 22 hours per week for the best-funded (the
largest group).

Personal computers with internet access

Given the size of these libraries, it’s not surprising that more
than half have fewer than four PCs available for patron use—but it may be
surprising that 47% do have four or more, including 13% with six or more. (Two
libraries have 20 to 39 PCs each, which is a lot of PCs for fewer than
700 patrons!)

Circulation per capita

It’s good news that nearly half of these libraries circulate at
least 10 items per capita—and in this case the expense/circulation correlation
is clear. Impressively, the top quarter of the best-funded libraries circulate
at least 32.6 items per capita.

Program attendance per capita

Nearly half of these
libraries (47%) fall into the top two brackets, with more than a quarter having
more than 1.1 attendance per capita. Yes, they’re small communities—but that’s
still strong programming.

Visits per capita

The largest groups of libraries fall into the most active
brackets, with more than half in the top three—another indication that these
libraries really are central to their small communities. As with other
measures, the ones that are best funded are most central. With one exception,
median dollars per capita rises as visits per capita rises, while the benefit
ratio generally stays in a small (and high) range.

Looking at the budget table, the median is a high 7.41
visits per capita—and one out of four of these libraries is visited roughly
once a month. Here, the correlation between visits and expenses is consistent
at the median level, with no exceptions.

PC use per capita

Another set of strong numbers, with just under half the
libraries in the top two brackets and 28% of them in the top bracket, 3.5 or
more uses per capita.

PCs per thousand patrons

Wow! Nearly three out of four
libraries are in the top bracket, with five or more PCs per thousand people,
and only nine aren’t in the top five brackets. But that’s a little misleading:
With, say, 200 people, a single PC puts you in the top bracket—and the only way
to drop below the top five brackets is not to have (or report) any PCs,
which is the case for those nine. (Still, the 75%ile figure for the best-funded
libraries is an impressive 19.33 PCs per thousand patrons.)

Circulation and visits per hour

None of these libraries is very busy, and that’s not surprising:
No library this small circulates 45 or more items an hour or has 30 or more
visitors per hour, leaving the top three brackets in both tables empty. In
practice, most of these libraries are open enough hours to be fairly quiet: 70%
circulate fewer than six items an hour and 63% have fewer than four visitors
per hour.

The budget table is
revealing because it breaks down those low figures. The overall median is 3.88
circulation and 3.13 visits per hour—and although, in keeping with most
figures, the best-funded libraries are the busiest, the median for those
spending $73 to $399 per hour is still only 5.34 circs and 4.31 visits.

Chapter 4: Libraries Serving
700 to 1,149

The 527 libraries in this category (with another 67 omitted) are
fairly evenly distributed among the top six expenditure brackets, with fewer
libraries per bracket in the bottom four. For example, there are fewer than
half as many $5-$11 libraries than there are $26-$30 or any higher group.
Benefit ratios are mostly between 6 and 8, with one lower than 6 and two higher
than 8.5.

Open hours

Two-thirds of these libraries are in the lowest two brackets,
with about half of those in the 99-1,040 hours group and half open 1,041-1,499
hours. Only 6% are open more than 40 hours a week (2,100 hours or more). The
few that are open extended hours are well funded. There’s a perfect
correlation between expenditures and median open hours—from 728 for $5-$11
libraries to 1,750 for $73-$399 libraries, and every level in between.

Personal computers with internet access

Two of these small libraries have 20-39 personal computers (and
very high funding)—and 29% have six or more. The median is four, which seems
strong for libraries this small.

Circulation and reference transactions per capita.

The correlation between expenditures and circulation is more
interesting than the fairly typical distribution of circulation (how typical?
it never deviates more than 3% from the overall distribution). The best-funded
libraries are, as usual, the most heavily used, with the top bracket showing a
75%ile of 32.32 circs.

Reference transactions
are also fairly typical, although not quite so well correlated with
expenditures.

Program attendance per capita

The numbers here are better than overall percentages, with more
than 100 of these libraries (19%) in the top bracket (1.1 or more program
attendance per capita) as compared to 9% overall. Here again, expenditures and
program attendance track perfectly and benefit ratios fall into a narrow range
(from 6.14 to 7.21).

PC use per capita

Half of the libraries fall into the top three of eight brackets
as compared to 30% overall—and 113 libraries (21%) report at least 3.5 PC uses
per capita, 2.5 times the overall percentage. From a budget perspective, half
or more of libraries with at least $36 per capita spending have at least 2.1
uses per capita, also a high figure, and there’s a straight correlation between
median use and budget.

PCs per thousand patrons

87% of the libraries are in the top three brackets, 42% in the
top (5+). That’s partly explainable by the small numbers of patrons. Here
again, expenditures per capita trace nicely with PCs per thousand patrons and
median PCs per thousand track perfectly with expenditure brackets.

Circulation and patron visits per hour

How busy are these libraries? Not very. More than half of them
circulate less than one item every ten minutes; nearly half see less a patron
visit less than once every fifteen minutes. With a few exceptions, even better
funded libraries don’t show high figures here: the median for $73-$399 is just
9.47 circs per hour and 7.22 visits per hour.

Chapter 5: Libraries Serving 1,150 to1,649

Yes, that’s a small population range, only slightly larger than
the previous one—but that’s the reality of America’s public libraries. The
chapter covers 496 libraries, with another 58 omitted for various reasons.
Libraries in this category are fairly typically distributed in terms of
expenditures per capita, with slightly fewer at the top and bottom and slightly
more in the middle.

Open hours

The first thing that struck me about this benchmark table is
that there is one library (or library system) serving fewer than 1,650
people and open at least 4,000 hours. It’s a very well funded library at
$398.04 per capita. It’s less surprising that only half of the libraries are
open at least 1,500 hours (29 hours a week) or that only about one out of nine
is open at least 2,100 hours (40 hours a week).

While the median expenditures on the benchmark table aren’t
neatly correlated (largely because some of the brackets have so few libraries),
the median hours in the budget table are—that is, as expenditures
increase (except for the two lowest-funded brackets), median hours consistently
increase as well.

Personal computers with internet access

The median overall here is 4.0, same as in Chapter 5 and still a
strong number, with a third of libraries having six or more PCs for patron use
and nine having more than a dozen.

Circulation and reference transactions per capita

What may be most interesting here is that the diversity of these
small-community libraries is such that circulation distribution is almost
precisely the same as for public libraries overall. That’s generally true for
reference as well, except that the middle brackets are slightly on the low side
and a higher percentage of libraries fall into the lowest bracket (no more than
one reference transaction for every 20 patrons). Those are generally poorly-funded
libraries (the median is $20, a full $7 lower than the next bracket), but low
reference counts aren’t all in the very poorest libraries. Namely, half of
libraries with $5-$16.99 spending have at least one reference transaction for
every five patrons, while one-quarter of those with $17-$20.99 funding have no
more than one for every twentyfive patrons).

Program attendance per capita

The percentages for program
attendance are slightly top-heavy and very slightly bottom-heavy. About
double the overall percentage of libraries average 1.1 or more attendance per
capita. In some ways, the budget table for program attendance is more
interesting: Libraries with high program attendance are scattered throughout
the top three brackets, but never make up even half of a bracket (the median
for the best-funded libraries is 0.85 attendance per capita).

PCs per thousand patrons

As with even smaller libraries, the numbers are clustered toward
the top, with 78% in the top three brackets and only 5% in the bottom three
brackets.

Circulation and patron visits per hour

These libraries are also, by and large, relatively quiet: only
7% average at least one circulation every three minutes and fully two-thirds
average no more than one every ten minutes. There’s a one-library anomaly
in patron visits per hour (a poorly funded library that’s the busiest in terms
of visits per hour) but overall, it’s a similar picture: 5% have more than one
patron visit every five minutes, 60% have less than one every ten minutes.

Chapter 6: Libraries Serving 1,650 to 2,249

There are 40 fewer of these
libraries than there are libraries serving 700 to 1,149, but only 27 had to be
omitted, so the number in the tables is identical: 527 libraries. For
expenditures, these libraries are a little lean at the richest and slightly
lean at the poorest end, with more libraries grouped in the middle
(specifically $21 to $35.99, three brackets totaling 39.4% rather than the
overall 31.9%). This is the first size category where the best-funded libraries
have a median benefit ratio below 4, although not much below
(3.82)—libraries that doubtless serve their specific community needs very well.

Open hours

One well-funded library/system is open a lot of hours
(4,000 or more, $259.40 per capita)—and again most libraries have fairly short
schedules, with 62% open no more than 1,820 hours or 35 hours per week. The
overall median is 1,672 (32 hours per week), and it’s only in the top two
expenditure brackets that most libraries are open at least 2,040 hours (39
hours per week).

Computers for patron use with internet access

One library/system has 40 or more computers—and no, it’s not
the library that’s open 4,000 hours or more, as this one has $74.53
expenditures per capita (and, unlike the other one, a very high benefit
ratio for a well-funded library, 13.66).

Circulation and reference per capita

Noteworthy for not standing out: The patterns are very
close to overall patterns, except that reference tends to be just slightly low.

PC use per capita and PCs per thousand patrons

PC use is a little high and computers per thousand patrons are
significantly higher than overall, with only 8% in the bottom four (out of
nine) brackets and 69% in the top three.

Circulation and patron visits per hour

A few of these libraries are
reasonably busy. Two average 45 to 69 circulations per hour (12 manage at least
30) and three have at least 30 patron visits per hour. But most are still
relatively quiet: 54% have less than one circulation every six minutes and 77%
have less than one patron visit every seven minutes.

Chapter 7: Libraries Serving 2,250 to 2,999

The group includes 497 libraries, with another 26 omitted. When
it comes to expenditures, there’s a slight slant toward the lower middle: The
top two and bottom brackets are both on the low side (in terms of percentage of
libraries) and $21-$25.99 is on the high side.

Open hours

Just under half of these
libraries are open at least 35 hours a week—and very few (6%) are open less
than 20 hours per week. Leaving out five libraries open more than 3,099 hours,
there’s the usual step-by-step correlation between funding and hours (e.g.,
median expenditure per capita for libraries open 1,041-1,499 hours was $20.01,
for 1,500-1,820 hours was $25.98, and for 1,822-2,099 hours was $32.07: these
are the three largest brackets, including 65% of the libraries). The median
benefit ratio range is very small as divided by open hours: from 5.99 to
6.84.

There’s also a perfect step-by-step correlation between
expenditure brackets and median open hours, all the way from the $5-$11.99
libraries (half open 1,198 hours or more) to the $73-$399.99 libraries (half
open at least 2,444 hours).

Computers for patrons with internet access

Just under half of these libraries have at least six public
internet PCs, but none has 40 or more. Notably, half of the libraries in the
two top funding brackets have at least nine PCs, while the median for the three
lowest funding brackets is four PCs.

Circulation transactions per capita

Circulation per capita is distributed almost exactly along
national lines and the circulation-expenditure correlation is consistent. This
is one of the size brackets in which benefit ratios almost consistently improve
along with expenditures.

Program attendance per capita

This metric tends slightly
toward the high side—13% of libraries are in each of the three top brackets,
with a total of 39% of libraries having at least 0.5 attendance per capita as
compared to the national figure of 33%. At the other extreme, the figure for very
low program attendance (including libraries that don’t report any programs)
is typical at 15%. Expense correlation is consistent: libraries that spend more
have more program attendance. Only the top budget bracket shows at least half
the libraries with more than one program attendance per capita.

Computers per thousand patrons

There’s a bulge here, but not quite at the top: exactly half of
the libraries have at least two but less than five computers per thousand
patrons. Very few libraries—27 or 5%—have more than five, and those that do
aren’t necessarily the best funded.

Circulation and patron visits per hour

A few of these libraries are busy,
with three showing 70-109 circulation per hour and another seven showing 45-69,
although 60% of the libraries have 13 or fewer circ per hour (the biggest clump
is at 6-9, that is, one circ every 8-10 minutes). Median circ per hour
correlates perfectly with expenditures, from the worst funded libraries (half
circulating fewer than 6.22 per hour and only one-quarter circulating 10.67 or
more) to the best (half circulating 20.69 per hour or more, one-quarter 30.97
or more).

Visits cluster at the low end. Although three libraries (not
the same three libraries as for circulation) show 45-69 visits per hour,
65% have fewer than nine visits per hour.

Chapter 8: Libraries Serving 3,000 to 3,999

Tables include 510 libraries,
with 33 others omitted. Other than slightly fewer than typical libraries at the
best-funded end and slightly more than usual at the worst funded end,
expenditure distribution is typical.

Open hours

Nearly two-thirds of these libraries are open at least 35 hours
per week and 42% are open at least 40 hours per week. The few (4%) open very
short hours (99-1,040) are the worst funded (median $8.56 per capita).

Computers for patrons with internet access

The bulge here is at 6-8 computers, with 33% of the libraries in
that bracket, 28% higher, 39% lower. A baker’s dozen have 20-39 computers; none
has more. Median expenditures rise in lock step with rising number of PCs.

Circulation and reference transactions per capita

Very much typical of all libraries, with no significant
deviations. Overall median circulation per capita is slightly higher
than the national median (8.18 compared to 7.93) and overall reference
transactions per capita is slightly lower (0.44 compared to 0.52).

Program attendance and patron visits per capita

Here again, what’s remarkable is how much these libraries—still
serving small communities—reflect public libraries as a whole in terms of
usage, with just slightly higher numbers in the two highest program-attendance
brackets.

Personal computers per thousand patrons

Nearly half of the libraries
have from 1.5 to 2.99 computers per thousand patrons, as compared to just under
a quarter of libraries nationally. Only 14% have less than one PC per thousand
patrons. The overall median is 1.85, compared to 1.3 nationally.

Circulation and patron visits per hour

Two busy libraries (70-109 circulation per hour)—but half the
libraries have fewer than 14 or significantly less than one circ every four
minutes. Just under half have at least nine patron visits per hour—but only one
in ten has 20 or more.

While the overall median for these libraries is 13.93 circ
and 9.06 visits per hour, that compares with 22.8 circ and 14.87 visits per
hour for the nation’s libraries: These are still mostly relatively quiet
libraries.

Chapter 9: Libraries Serving 4,000 to 5,299

This chapter covers more
libraries than any other: 532, with another 38 omitted. Funding is slightly on
the low side, with fewer libraries in the top three expense brackets and
slightly more in the bottom two.

Open hours

Although there are still no library systems open more than
10,000 hours (scarcely surprising given the population range), half a dozen are
open 4,000 to 10,000 hours—and three-quarters are open at least 35 hours per
week, with just over half open at least 40 hours per week.

Oddly, the median expense budget for the six systems open
more than 4,000 hours is on the low side at $22.95. With that huge exception,
expenditures and hours track as usual—and, except for 10 libraries open fewer
than 1,041 hours (that is, no more than 20 hours per week), the benefit ratios
cluster very close together, from 5.33 to 5.97.

Possibly worth noting: for libraries with at least $43 expenditures
per capita, three-quarters of the libraries are open more than 41 hours per
week.

Computers for patron use with internet access

One very well-funded library ($207.81 per capita) has at least
40 PCs—but three-quarters have four to 12. More than half have at least seven,
but the median doesn’t exceed seven until you get to $53 per capita, when it
jumps to 10.

Circulation and reference transactions per capita

Nothing much out of the ordinary, although slightly fewer
libraries (4% rather than 6%) circulate 24 or more items per capita and
slightly more (15% rather than 13%) circulate 10-12 items. Expenditure-activity
correlations are predictably consistent for circulation and not quite as
consistent for reference.

Circulation and patron visits per hour

The smallest very busy library is in this group: one
library with more than 110 circulations per hour (it’s a poorly funded library
at that: $13.37 expenditures per capita). Some 44% of the libraries have at
least 20 circulations per hour and only 10% have fewer than six. Overall,
however, these libraries are still somewhat quieter than the national norm—the
overall medians are 17.79 circ and 10.69 visits per hour, compared to 22.8 and
14.87 nationally.

Chapter 10: Libraries Serving 5,300 to 6,799

These are still small libraries, but not as small—and the
tables cover 529 libraries with 28 more omitted. Expenditures trend just
slightly low.

Open hours

I was sufficiently startled
by this table to violate my rule of not looking up actual libraries: One
library system (it is a system) serving fewer than 6,800 potential
patrons is open at least 10,000 hours—and it’s a well-funded system, with
$160.13 per capita funding. Ten others, not nearly so well funded (at least at
the median), are open 4,000 to 10,000 hours.

We now have a majority of
libraries open more than 40 hours per week (62%), with 84% open at least 35
hours per week and only 1% (six libraries) open half-time or less, that is, no
more than 20 hours per week. Expenditures track well with hours except in the
top two brackets (the second bracket’s median expenditures are lower than the
third bracket).

Computers for patron use with internet access

Nearly half (46%) of the libraries have six to 12 computers,
with two well-funded libraries having 40-99 bracket and only 8% having three or
fewer.

Circulation and reference transactions per capita

Circulation tends just a wee bit high; so does reference
overall, but only slightly. Nothing stands out in particular. As usual, there’s
perfect step-by-step correlation between circulation and expenditures, but here
circulation benefit ratios cover a slightly wider range (5.29 to 6.55, omitting
the highest and lowest brackets).

Circulation and patron visits per hour

Although there are still fewer very busy libraries than the
national norm, overall these libraries are fairly typical. Half the libraries
have at least one circ every three minutes and one-third have one every two
minutes (or more); half have at least 13 patron visits per hour, and the
overall medians for both measures of busyness are roughly equal to the national
medians.

Chapter 11: Libraries Serving 6,800 to 8,699

Tables include 503 libraries, with another 27 omitted.
Distribution by expenditures differs from the norm mostly in that slightly
fewer libraries spend $31-$35.99 and slightly more spend $5-$11.99.

Open hours

Very few libraries have very short hours—only 2% are open less
than 29 hours a week and only 10% are open less than 35 hours a week, with more
than three-quarters open at least 40 hours a week and a fair number of small
systems open 4,000 hours or more. Another way of looking at this: for libraries
spending at least $17 per capita, at least three-quarters of the libraries in
every expenditure bracet are open at least 40 hours a week (as are some of
those spending less).

Computers for patron use with internet access

More than three-quarters have six to 19 computers, with nearly
one-third in the 9-12 range. Only 13% have fewer than six computers for patron
use and only 11% have 20 or more. There’s a consistent relationship between
number of computers and expenditures—although the inverse view, the budget
table, has one anomaly (the median for libraries spending $17-$20.99 is the lowest
median, while other figures are generally consistent).

Circulation per capita

You’ve already seen a scatterplot of the budget table for this
metric, an absolutely typical case—and the benchmark table is also typical,
never varying by more than 2% from figures for libraries of all sizes. The
tracking of expenditures to circulation is completely consistent here as
well—and to give somewhat extreme examples, libraries circulating about eight
times as many items (that is, 17-23 as compared to 2-3) average about four
times the funding ($62.14 median as compared to $14.36).

There’s nothing special to mention about several other
metrics—they’re basically typical of all libraries.

Computers per thousand patrons

Here, both the high (top two brackets) and low end (bottom two
brackets) are less populated than one might expect, with most libraries in the
broad middle: 76% of these libraries have anywhere from 0.8 to 2.99 computers
per thousand patrons, as compared to 53% nationwide.

Circulation and patron visits per hour

Although still not terribly busy, with an overall median of
24.82 circulation per hour and 17.00 visits per hour, these libraries are reasonably
lively. 61% have at least one circ every three minutes (41% at least one every
two minutes), and only 11% have less than one every six minutes. Nearly
two-thirds have at least 13 visits per hour, and only 7% have less than six per
hour.

Chapter 12: Libraries Serving 8,700 to 11,099

I tend to think of these 506 libraries (in the tables, with 17
others omitted) as being the largest small libraries or the smallest
medium-sized libraries. Distribution by expenditures is typical.

Open hours

We see three library systems open 10,000 hours or more, more
than two dozen open 4,000-10,000 hours—and only one open less than 20 hours a
week. Four out of five are open at least 40 hours a week and nearly half are
open at least 51 hours a week (that is, 2,700 hours a year). Except for an
anomalous drop at the $4,000-$10,000 hour level, expenditures per capita rise
in lockstep with open hours, but at generally lower rates.

Viewed from the expenditures side, the numbers are
consistent as well, with half of the worst-funded libraries open less than 39
hours a week—and half of the best-funded ones open at least 59 hours a week.

Computers for patron use with internet access

Once again, the bulge is in the middle: 72% of the libraries
have six to 19 computers, with only half a dozen having 40 to 99 (none 100 or
more) and a dozen offering fewer than 4.

There’s nothing unusual about circulation per capita,
reference transactions per capita, program attendance and patron visits per
capita or PC use per capita.

Computers per thousand patrons

Relatively few of these libraries have two or more computers per
thousand people: 17% in all (and only 1% offer five or more), compared to 30%
(and 8%) overall. There’s a consistent relationship between computers per
thousand patrons and expenditures per capita, although there are cases where
the budget table isn’t quite consistent (libraries spending $12-$16.99 seem to
be better equipped here than those spending $17-$25.99). Only in the top
expenditures bracket do at least half the libraries offer more than 1.5
computers per thousand patrons, and for those libraries the median is 2.1.

Circulation and patron visits per hour

Eleven libraries fall into the busiest circulation category,
with 110 or more circ per hour, but 19 fall into the slowest (less than 6 per
hour). The bulge is in the upper middle: just under two-thirds of the libraries
have 20 to 69 circ per hour, including about one out of four with 30 to 44.
(Expenditures rise consistently with circ per hour.) The overall median, 29.03,
means just under one circ every two minutes—but for the best-funded libraries
that’s up to 59.03, just under one per minute.

Visits also cluster in the middle: 46% between 13 and 29
visits per hour (two of the nine brackets with roughly 11% each overall), and
79% between 9 and 44 visits per hour. Half of the best-funded libraries have 39
or more visits per hour; half of the worst funded have 10.5 or less.

Chapter 13: Libraries Serving 11,100 to 14,099

Still “rural” by some
definitions but into what I’d call smaller medium-sized libraries, 499
libraries are in these tables and 14 are omitted. The expenditure picture is
patchier than usual, with somewhat fewer libraries in the $31-$35.99 and
$17-$20.99 brackets and somewhat more (13%) in the $5-$11.99 bracket.

Open hours

The bulge is in the middle.
Almost nine out of ten are open at least 40 hours per week; only 3% are open
less than 35 hours per week. The biggest single bracket: 26% are open
2,700-3,099 hours per week (roughly 52 to 60 hours), compared to 12% overall.

There’s no expenditures bracket where even
one-quarter of the libraries are open less than 2,080 hours (40 hours per
week), including libraries spending $5-$11.99 per capita.

Computers for patron use with internet access

Another bulge in the middle,
this time a narrower one: More than half the libraries (54%) have nine to 19
PCs, with only one out of five having more and one out of four having fewer
(but only seven libraries have fewer than four). The median is a dozen, and
once expenditures rise above $31 per capita, so does the median (to a high of
18 for the best-funded libraries).

PC use per capita and PCs per thousand patrons

PC use is slightly on the low side (with fewer libraries in the
top two brackets, more in the bottom three); PC availability is significantly
below average, with only two libraries (0%) having at least five per
thousand (compared to 9% overall) and roughly half having less than one
(compared to 38% overall).

Circulation and patron visits per hour

Forty-five percent of the libraries had 30 to 69 circ per hour;
16% were quite busy (70 or more) and 11% were relatively quiet (13 or less),
with only 6% having less than one circ every six minutes. (The expenditures per
capita track perfectly with circulation per hour, although when you look at
budget brackets there are exceptions.)

Visits also cluster in the high middle, with 46% having 20
to 44 visits, 16% more—and only 4% have fewer than 6 visits per hour.

Worth mentioning (again?): Since per-hour figures are across
all hours in multibranch systems, they reflect levels of activity
somewhat differently than circ and visits per capita.

Chapter 14: Libraries Serving 14,100 to 18,499

Tables include 515 libraries, with another ten omitted.
Libraries are typically distributed by spending, with slightly more at the top
and just slightly fewer in the $17-$20.99 bracket.

Open hours

There’s a bulge again, this time in the upper middle: 47% of the
libraries are open 2,700 to 3,999 hours (52 to 77 hours a week). Only 2% (10
libraries) are open 35 hours a week or less. There’s another anomaly suggesting
that small library systems aren’t as well funded as medium-sized single
libraries: the median funding for libraries open 4,000-10,000 hours (63 of them
or 12%) is $30.46, considerably lower than the $50.13 for those open
3,100-3,999 hours or the $53.27 for the four libraries open 10,000 hours or
more.

Computers for patron use with internet access

More than half of the libraries (58%) offer 13 to 39 computers
and only 18 (4%) offer fewer than six.

Circulation per capita

The only deviations from national averages are positive ones:
slightly more libraries with 17-23 circulations per capita and slightly fewer
with less than two. Measured by benchmarks, expenditures rise consistently with
circulation; measured by expenditures, there’s one minor deviation (libraries
spending $31-$35.99 have slightly lower median, 75%ile and 25%ile than those
spending $26-$30.99—that is, in general they have slightly lower circulation).

Program attendance per capita

Somewhat fewer libraries at the top and bottom, somewhat more in
the lower middle. So, for example, 15% of the libraries had at least 0.7
attendance per capita (compared to 21% overall) and 11% had no more than 0.1
attendance (compared to 15% overall). Expenditures track smoothly with
attendance, but not so smoothly on the budget side.

Computers per thousand patrons

Somewhat below average, with 40% having less than one PC per
thousand patrons. Only the top three spending brackets show at least half the
libraries with at least one PC per thousand patrons—compared to the top eight
brackets nationally. The overall median is 0.91 compared to 1.30
nationally.

Circulation and patron visits per hour

Now we’re getting quite a few
very busy libraries—10% show at least 110 circ per hour or almost two
per minute, and more than half have at least 45 circ per hour. At the other
end, there are seven libraries with less than one circ every ten minutes, out
of only 5% with less than one every six minutes. From the budget side, the top
four brackets ($36 and up) all have half of the libraries circulating at least
70 items per hour, while the bottom three ($20.99 and below) have at least half
with fewer than 30 items per hour.

Visits also tend toward the high side, with 52% having at least
one patron every two minutes and only 5% having fewer than nine per hour.

Chapter 15: Libraries Serving 18,500 to 24,999

The largest libraries sometimes called “rural.” The tables
include 492 libraries, with another 15 omitted. Funding patterns show an
interesting concave pattern, with slightly more libraries in the two top and
two bottom brackets, slightly fewer in the low middle categories ($17-$25.99,
with 15.7% of the libraries compared to 19.6% overall—“slightly” is the
appropriate word here).

Open hours

The percentage of libraries and systems open at least 4,000
hours is exactly typical at 17%—and all but one of those is in the 4,000
to 10,000 hour category. At the other extreme, only 4% are open less than 40
hours per week, including two libraries open less than 35 hours per week. This
is one group where median expenditures do not track well with hours in
the benchmark table or, for that matter, as well as one might expect in the
budget table.

Computers for patron use with internet access

One library or system has at least 100 computers (it’s a
well-funded library at $92.82), and only 3% have fewer than six. The
bulk—two-thirds—have 13 to 39, evenly split between 13-19 and 20-39.
Expenditures do track consistently with number of PCs on the benchmark
side, less consistently on the budget side (where libraries spending $21-$30
have more PCs than you might expect).

Circulation per capita

Another case where what’s striking is how typical these figures
are. Cumulative percentages never vary by more than 2% from the overall
figures, and that 2% variation is only in one case. Expenditures track cleanly
with circulation and, except for the highest bracket (where libraries
circulating 24 or more items per capita have an unusually high benefit
ratio), benefit ratios are in an extremely narrow range, from 4.28 to 4.81.

This is another size category where tracking between
spending and circulation isn’t quite as neat when viewed based on expenditure
brackets, as libraries spending $53-$72.99 have somewhat lower median
circulation than those spending $43-$52.99.

Computers per thousand patrons

Low at the top, high at the bottom: Only 6% of the libraries
have at least two computers per thousand people—and nearly half (48%) have less
than 0.8.

Circulation and patron visits per hour

One-sixth of these libraries show at least 110 circulations per
hour and three out of ten have 45 or more circ per hour. Only 4% have less than
one circ every six minutes—including seven with less than one every ten
minutes. The budget table has some anomalies (libraries spending $43-$52.99 are
considerably busier than those spending $53-$72.99), but the top four
brackets all have medians over 71 circ per hour, and only the lowest bracket
($5-$11.99) falls below 30 per hour.

Three out of five libraries (62%) have at least one patron
visit every two minutes; only nine libraries (2%) have less than six visits per
hour, 4% less than nine.

Chapter 16: Libraries Serving 25,000 to 34,499

We’re now into the smaller number of libraries and systems
sometimes called urban—those serving at least 25,000 patrons, which total only
2,025 out of the 8,659 libraries fully studied—or about 23%—and an even smaller
percentage of all U.S. public libraries, since fewer of these libraries
were omitted.

This group includes 500 libraries in the tables with another
20 omitted. More libraries have very high funding; slightly fewer fall into the
$12-$16.99 bracket.

Open hours

Probably the most relevant figures here are that nearly three
out of five libraries and systems are open a total of 60 hours per week or more
and four out of five are open 52 hours per week or more—and, conversely, only
3% are open less than 40 hours per week (including a single library open less
than half-time). While expenditures and open hours don’t track perfectly in the
top three brackets, the sparsely-populated bottom three brackets are all poorly
funded.

More striking in some ways is the budget table: In every expenditures
bracket, even $5-$11.99, at least half the libraries are open more than 51
hours per week, and that rises to more than 60 hours per week when you get to
$26 per capita or more.

Computers for patron use with internet access

The biggest bulge: 39% of the libraries have 20 to 39
computers—and all but 6% have more than nine. (Only two libraries have fewer
than six.)

Circulation and reference per capita

For both of these, libraries track slightly high: e.g., 43% of
the libraries circulate 10 items or more per capita, compared to 38% overall.

Program attendance per capita

Conversely, program attendance tracks slightly low in the upper
categories, with 38% showing at least 0.4 attendance per capita, compared to
42% overall. For this metric, expenditures per capita do track consistently
with program attendance—and that’s true from both directions.

Computers per thousand patrons

This metric is on the low
side, with more than half the libraries offering less than 0.8 PCs per thousand
patrons. The overall median is 0.76 PCs per thousand patrons, compared to 1.30
for all of the libraries.

Circulation and patron visits per hour

These are busy libraries:
The single largest bracket, with 29% of the libraries, is the top bracket, 110
or more circs per hour (with all outlet hours counted). Nearly half have 70 or
more. In this case, expenditures do track, with the median for that busy 29%
being $53.65 per capita. (The median benefit ratio is also higher for the
busiest libraries than for the others.)

Coming at it from the budgetary side, for every bracket $31
and above, half the libraries circulate more than 75 items per hour. The top
two expenditure brackets are even busier: half of those funded at $53 to $72.99
have at least 117 circ per hour—and half of those funded at $73 or more do at
least 134, with the top quarter exceeding 200 per hour.

Visits per hour are also on the high side, with half the
libraries at 45 or more per hour and roughly three-quarters at 30 or more. The
two top spending categories both show half the libraries with more than one
visitor per minute—nearly 80 per hour for the top category. At the other end,
half of even the worst funded libraries circulate more than 26 items and have
more than 26 visitors per hour.

Chapter 17: Libraries Serving 34,500 to 53,999

Tables in this chapter cover 511 libraries, with 14 omitted. Distribution
of libraries by expenditures is slightly concave—a little high at the top and a
bit more so at the bottom, a little low in the midrange (with the biggest
deviations in the $31-$35.99 and $36-$42.99 brackets, each 8.2% as compared to
10.0% and 10.2% overall).

Open hours

Nearly three-quarters of
these libraries and library systems are open 3,100 hours (call it 60 hours a
week) or more, with one-third open 4,000-10,000 hours. Nearly all are open at
least full-time: 95% more than 46 hours a week, 98% more than 40 hours per
week—but there are two libraries this size open less than 29 hours per week.
Since 65% of the libraries fall into two brackets (3,100-3,999 hours and
4,000-10,000 hours), it’s not surprising that median expenditures per capita
are all over the place.

Computers for patron use with internet access

Three-quarters of these libraries and systems have 20 or more
public access computers and only 10 libraries have fewer than nine; here,
except for anomalies at the bottom (two brackets totaling three libraries),
expenditures do rise consistently with PCs—or, more likely, vice-versa. The
overall median is 31 computers, with a quarter of the libraries having 44 or
more.

Circulation per capita

Slightly fewer libraries in the upper brackets, with 44%
circulating eight or more items (compared to 50% overall); slightly more in the
two bottom brackets, with 26% circulating less than five items per capita
(compared to 21% overall). Here, the expenditures per capita do rise
consistently with circs per capita—and the benefit ratio range, omitting the
top and bottom brackets, is very narrow: 4.15 to 4.78. Worth noting, and not
that unusual: the median benefit ratio for the libraries with the lowest circulation
and expenditures, 3.62, is considerably lower than for the highest circulation
and expenditures, 5.05: Those active and well-funded (median $92.77) appear to
be better values than the most poorly-funded (median $12.81).

Except for one small deviation (as in some other size
categories, libraries spending $31-$35.99 seem to be more active than you’d
expect), the budget table also shows step-by-step consistency. At the low end,
half of the libraries circulate 2.63 items or fewer per capita; at the high
end, half circulate 17.03 or more.

Reference transactions per capita

The numbers themselves are a little better than average, with a
higher overall median and more libraries in higher benchmark brackets—but this
is also worth noting because both benchmark and budget tables show absolute
step-by-step consistency in spending/performance correlation. Notably,
three-quarters of the best-funded libraries have at least 1.11 reference
transactions per capita, and a quarter of them have 2.18 or more.

Program attendance per capita

Four out of ten libraries have between 0.11 and 0.29 program
attendance per capita (as compared to three out of ten overall), and only 44%
exceed that level (compared to 54% overall). Expenditures track well with
program attendance. The budget table shows no expenditures bracket where
even the most active 25% of libraries hit or exceed 0.75 attendance per capita.

Computers per thousand patrons

Strikingly low figures here: Only one library system in the top
two brackets combined, only 8% of the libraries have at least 1.5 computers per
thousand patrons (compared to 43% overall) and 56% of the libraries and systems
are in the bottom two brackets (less than 0.8 computers per thousand patrons),
compared to 29% overall. Expenditures track consistently with the metric.
Notably, the median for all these libraries is 0.73, compared to 1.30 overall
and actually lower than the 25%ile overall—and only the highest funding bracket
shows a median larger than one PC per thousand patrons.

Circulation and patron visits per hour

These are also busy libraries, even more so than in the
previous size group: 36% circulate 110 or more items per hour, and 77%
circulate at least 30. (Eighteen libraries are in the doldrums, circulating
less than 10 items an hour.) Looking at the budget table, more than half of
libraries in the top three brackets circulate more than two items per
minute across all branches—and a quarter of the libraries do at least three per
minute, or more than four per minute for the best-funded libraries.

Patron visits per hour are similarly high, with 34% having
70 or more, 82% at least one every three minutes—and ten libraries with less
than one patron visit every ten minutes.

Chapter 18: Libraries Serving 54,000 to 104,999

Yes, this group covers almost as wide a population range as the
first 15 groups combined; that’s how America’s public libraries are
distributed. The tables cover 501 libraries, with 14 omitted.

Relatively fewer of these libraries have the highest
expenditure level or spend between $36 and $42.99; relatively more fall into
the two lowest spending brackets, specifically the second lowest ($12-$16.99).

Open hours

The good news here: none of these libraries and systems
is open less than 35 hours a week and 93% are open at least 52 hours a week.
(Four out of ten, most of them presumably systems with more than one outlet,
are open 4,000 to 10,000 hours a year.)

Computers for patron use with internet access

Nine out of ten of these libraries and systems have at least 20
patron access computers; six out of ten have at least 40. (Four poorly funded
libraries have fewer than nine.) Expenditures track well with computer
availability.

Circulation per capita

Low at the high end, high just below the middle: Where half the
libraries nationally circulate at least eight items per capita, only 39% of these
libraries reach that mark. Expenditures track well with circulation levels and
the budget table shows an equally consistent correlation between expenditure
brackets and median circulation.

Program attendance per capita

While there’s a consistent
correlation between benchmark levels of attendance and median expenditures per
capita—libraries with more effective programming consistently spend more
overall—the numbers are on the low side, with only 37% having at least 0.3
attendance per capita, compared to 54% overall.

Computer use per capita

A similar story to program attendance: Consistent (with one
slight exception) correlation between the metric and expenditures, but
libraries tend to be on the low side. More than half (56%) offer less than one
PC per thousand patrons, compared to 43% overall, and the overall median point
is 0.93. But looking at the budget table, half of libraries spending at least
$26 per capita show at least one PC use per capita, a figure that keeps rising
to 2.09 for the best-funded libraries.

Computers per thousand patrons

Also on the low side: no libraries with three or more computers
per thousand patrons and only 5% with 1.5 to 2.99; nearly two-thirds offer less
than 0.8 computers per thousand patrons. The median for libraries this size is
0.68, not much more than half the overall median (1.30), and only the highest
funding bracket shows at least half the libraries with more than one PC per
thousand. (Actually, that bracket—$73 to $399.99 per capita—has the same median
point as all libraries nationally, and the 75%ile is lower than the
overall national figure, at 1.61 compared to 2.48.)

Circulation and patron visits per hour

These are also very busy libraries, with 38% circulating at
least 110 items per hour and 82% circulating 30 or more. Notably, median
expenditures per capita for all benchmark levels below 45-69 is under
$18. The budget table shows more than two circs per minute for more than half
of all libraries spending at least $43 per capita, rising to more than 3.5 per
minute for the best funded. The top quarter of the best-funded libraries,
including all hours for all outlets, circulate more than five items per
minute.

Nearly three-quarters of these libraries are visited at
least 30 times an hour, with four out of ten having 70 or more visits. “Or
more”? The median point for the best-funded libraries is 105.16 visits per
hour, and the 75%ile for every expenditure level $31 and higher is 115 or more.

Chapter 19: Libraries Serving 105,000 Plus

The 513 libraries in these tables (one extremely large library
system was omitted for failing to report adequately) are, of course, quite
diverse, and most of them are systems rather than single libraries. Relatively
few are very well funded; relatively few are very poorly funded.

Open hours

Three-quarters of these libraries and systems are open at least
10,000 hours a year and all but 6% are open at least 4,000 hours.
Astonishingly, two libraries are open 1,500 to 1,820 hours—and two others are
open less than 1,040 hours a year (that is, 20 hours a week to cover at least
105,000 patrons).

Given that most of these libraries are in the largest
benchmark bracket, the budget table is useful for additional detail. The
numbers don’t rise entirely smoothly (once again, libraries spending $31 to
$35.99 seem to be overachievers, with a median of 24,897 open hours, the highest
median of any spending bracket), but for libraries spending at least $31
per capita, more than half the libraries are open at least 21,800 hours a year
(419 hours a week divided among outlets)—and one-quarter are open at least
35,420 hours (681 hours per week).

Computers for patron use with internet access

You’d expect most of these large library systems to have lots
of computers—and they do. Nearly two-thirds have 100 or more, and 95% have
at least 40. (Still, three of these large libraries and systems have fewer than
four available personal computers, although none has four to 12).

The overall median is 140
computers, with one-quarter of the libraries having 257 or more—and this time,
the median does rise consistently with improved spending. Half of the worst
funded libraries have 59 computers or fewer; half of the best funded have 240
or more. For the top three funding brackets ($43 and up per capita),
one-quarter of the libraries have at least 400 computers available for public
use.

Circulation per capita

Low at the higher end—with only 16% of the libraries circulating
at least 13 items per capita, compared to 25% overall—and high in the lower,
but not lowest, categories: 42% of the libraries circulate two to 5.99 items
per capita, compared to 31% for libraries in general. Expenditures per capita
do track consistently with circulation, and—excluding the top and bottom
brackets—the benefit ratio range is fairly small, from 4.15 to 5.05.

Looking at circ from a budget perspective, half of the
libraries in the top two spending brackets circulate at least 14 items per
capita, and median circulation does track with spending.

Reference transactions per capita

Here, the largest libraries track high, with 42% having at least
0.9 reference transactions per capita (compared to 29% overall) and 82% having
at least 0.35 (compared to 62% overall). Only 20 libraries, 4%, fall into the
two lowest brackets, compared with 18% overall. Expenditures track reference
transactions consistently, from $11.93 as the median for the four libraries
averaging less than one transaction per 20 patrons to $50.27 for the 57
libraries averaging two or more transactions per patron.

The median for libraries this size is 0.74, nearly 50%
higher than the national median of 0.52—and half of the libraries spending at
least $36 per capita have at least one reference transaction per capita
(including three-quarters of libraries spending at least $53).

Program attendance per capita

None of these libraries and systems was able to attract 1.1 or
more attendance per capita and only nine managed to reach 0.7 to 1.09.
(Nationally, 21% of libraries are in those top two brackets.) Most
libraries—54%—fall between 0.11 and 0.29 attendance per capita. Expenditures do
track consistently with program attendance on the benchmark side, a bit less so
on the budget side. Even for the best-funded libraries, only half managed more
than 0.4 attendance per capita and only one-quarter managed at least 0.57. The
median is 0.21, roughly one program attendance for each five patrons, less than
two-thirds of the median for all libraries.

Patron visits per capita

These numbers also tend low, with only 15% of libraries having
at least seven visits per capita (compared to 33% overall). There’s consistent
tracking between expenditures and visits; for the three libraries in the
highest bracket (13 or more visits per capita), median funding is $103 per
capita. On the budget side, expenditures track consistently with median visits,
from 2.34 for the most poorly funded libraries to 8.21 for the best funded.

Computers per thousand patrons

Although most of these libraries and systems have lots of
computers, they also have lots of patrons. No library falls into the top two
brackets and only 8% have at least 1.2 computers per thousand (compared to 54%
for libraries of all sizes). Two-thirds of the libraries have less than 0.8
computers per thousand patrons. I would say expenditures track smoothly with
computers per thousand patrons, but there’s one exception: The two libraries
with two to 2.99 computers per thousand patrons have a median spending level of
$41.12, considerably below the next lower brackets.

Circulation and patron visits per hour

Four out of ten of these large libraries circulate at least 110
items per hour across all outlets, and 93% circulate at least 320. Four
libraries are quiet, circulating fewer than 14 items an hour (with one
circulating fewer than 10). Looking at the budget side, you don’t see the
astonishing numbers of some slightly smaller libraries: The highest median is
152.23 circs per hour or roughly 2.5 per minute, and only one 75%ile (for the
best-funded libraries) exceeds 200 circs per hour.

Nearly three-quarters of
the libraries have 45 or more patron visits per hour, and 96% have at least 20;
there are some lightly visited libraries, but not many.

And that’s it…

…for chapter-specific comments, leaving most of the book—chapter
20, libraries by state—for later.

Oddities and Tidbits

Now let’s look at some of the interesting items that turn up
when you compare all table lines across chapters and (sometimes) across
metrics. Are these meaningful? Sometimes yes, sometimes no—but they may be
interesting. Or they may not. I wouldn’t consider most of the rest of this
essay to be important, only fun.

Expenditure outliers

As with every other metric,
expenditures per capita brackets were chosen to make each bracket (row) as
equal as possible (without odd bracket boundaries—for expenditures, that meant
whole-dollar limits). Thus, overall, the range is from 8.7% to 11.0%, as close
as I could come to 10% for each bracket without using cents as breakpoints. Six
brackets range from 9.8% to 10.2%, a very narrow range; the other four are
themselves slight outliers (two high, two low).

So how widely do distributions vary within library size
groups? Quite widely.

·On the low side, the three most extreme cases are the smallest
libraries (fewer than 700 patrons), where the three lowest expenditure brackets
are, respectively, 1.6%, 4.0% and 4.4% of these libraries. That makes sense:
Even at the highest of those three, $20.99, it’s hard to run a library with
some paid staffing on less than $14,700 a year.

·The next lowest is at the opposite extreme in both senses: only
4.9% of libraries serving 105,000 or more patrons are funded at $73 to $399.99.
That also makes sense.

·No others are under 5%, and only two—the two lowest expenditure
brackets for the next-smallest libraries, those serving 700 to 1,149
patrons—are under 6%.

·At the high end, we again see the very smallest libraries: 21.6%
of those serving fewer than 700 people spend $73 to $399.99 and 16.0% spend $36
to $42. Only two others are 15% or higher: $12-$16.99 for libraries serving
54,000 to 104,999 people and $26-$30.99 for those serving 1,650 to 2,249.

Extreme percentages for all benchmarks

Silly as it is to lump all benchmarks for 10 different metrics
together, let’s do just that, noting that benchmarks have either eight, nine or
ten brackets, so that an equal distribution might be 10%, 11% (nine brackets)
or 12% (eight brackets).

There are 76 cases where a bracket has no libraries at all
(those rows don’t show up in the tables). Another 35 are singletons, and we’ll
get to those later. Since you need three libraries to reach 1%, there are also
“0%” cases with two libraries; in all, there are 132 cases where a given
benchmark for a given size library has a 0% figure.

There are in all 376 cases where the figure is 5% or less,
that is, less than half a “normal” case—too many to mention.

The other extreme—cases where a single row has an unusually
high percentage of libraries for a given size group—also has quite a few
examples, although not nearly as many. Of 1,602 total rows (including
the overall metrics), just as 23% are less than half the norm, 111—7% of the
total—show 24% or higher, but that’s not actually double the overall numbers
for all rows (since a few rows in overall metrics are as high as 18%).

I think that last sentence is hard to parse and maybe harder
to understand. Because I set benchmarks to be “whole” breakpoints as much as
possible, there are cases where one benchmark row might represent as many as
18% of libraries across the nation, rather than the 10% to 12% I’m aiming for.
Specifically, 18% of libraries have 6-8 PCs, 16% circulate 4-5.99 items per
capita, 16% report less than 0.5 PC uses per capita and 16% have 0.5 to 0.79
PCs per thousand patrons. There are another six benchmark brackets representing
15% of all libraries: 4-6 PCs, 2-3.99 circ per capita, the three bottom
program attendance per capita rows (0-0.1, 0.11-0.19, 0.2-0.29), and libraries
with fewer than six circulations per hour.

Limiting the high extreme to 37% or more, that is, twice as
high as any overall row, we’re down to 20, just over 1% of the rows.
Here are the top cases, those where a single bracket (out of at least eight)
has more than half the libraries for its metric:

·75%: Three out of every four of the very largest
libraries/systems (105,000 or more patrons) has at least 10,000 open hours
including all branches and bookmobiles.

·73%: The percentage of the very smallest libraries
(fewer than 700 patrons) with at least five PCs per thousand patrons, which of
course may mean only one PC in a few cases.

·70%: This one might be surprising: The percentage of the
very smallest libraries that circulate fewer than six items per hour (or one
every ten minutes).

·65%: The percentage of the very largest libraries
with 100 or more computers with internet access for patron use.

·63%: A tie between two metrics for the very smallest libraries:
Hours (99 to 1,040, the lowest bracket) and patron visits per hour (less than
4, also the lowest bracket).

·54%: One of only two high-end outliers that isn’t related
to the very smallest or very largest libraries: Percentage of the next smallest
libraries (700 to 1,149) that circulate fewer than six items per hour.

·53%: Percentage of the very smallest libraries with no
more than three personal computers, including some with none at all. Note that
a library this small with four personal computers also, automatically,
falls into the 73% of these with more than five PCs per thousand patrons.

·51%: Percentage of libraries serving 54,000 to 104,999
patrons that have 40 to 99 PCs.

What I find interesting about these extremes is that they all
make sense: You’d expect the very smallest and the very largest libraries to be
extremes in other ways. In some ways, it says a lot for the very
smallest libraries that two-thirds of them are open enough hours so that their
small communities aren’t checking out books rapidly in the few hours available.
(There’s a more pessimistic version of that, but it’s not true: These libraries
do pretty well in terms of circulation per capita, better than the overall
average at most levels.)

Extreme dollars over all benchmarks

Benchmark tables show the median expenditures per capita for any
given group of libraries at any given level of performance for a given metric.

The median for all libraries is $30.93 per capita. I’ve
excluded libraries with less than $5 or more than $399.99 per capita in
expenditures, so that’s the range. What are some of the extremes?

Ignoring singletons and other groups of fewer than five
libraries, there are six cases where a benchmark has a median expenditure per
capita below $10.00:

·Libraries serving 3,000 to 3,999 patrons and open 99 to 1,040
hours: $8.56.

·Libraries serving 4,000 to 5,299 and circulating less than two
items per capita: $9.01.

·Libraries serving 11,100 to 14,999 and open 1,500 to 1,820 hours:
$9.24.

·Libraries serving 8,700 to 11,099 with fewer than four patron
visits per hour: $9.35.

·Libraries serving 18,500 to 24,999 with fewer than six circs per
hour: $9.57.

·Libraries serving 25,000 to 34,999 with fewer than six circs per
hour: $9.61.

Note that in all but one case the lowest funding matches the
lowest bracket in the metric.

What about the high end? There are no examples
showing median expenditures higher than $150 that involve more than three
libraries, but there are two involving three each:

·Libraries serving fewer than 700 patrons and open 2,700 to 3,099
hours: $199.21.

The highest figure involving
at least half a dozen libraries is $129.73, for libraries serving 4,100 to
5,299 patrons and averaging 45 to 69 patron visits per hour.

Finally for this possibly-silly, possibly-obvious set of
outliers, let’s look at low and high benefit ratios. Yes, there are a few
libraries with low benefit ratios, either because they’re barely hanging on or
because they serve their communities well in other ways. Ignoring rows with
fewer than six libraries, there are—surprisingly, I think—only four cases in
which the median benefit ratio for a given group of libraries is less
than 3.00:

·2.13: Two dozen libraries serving 105,000 or more that
circulate less than two items per capita. (The median expenditure for this
group is $13.50 per capita.)

·2.14: Seven libraries serving 105,000 or more patrons that
have 9-12 patron visits per hour. Median expenditure for this group: $14.79 per
capita.

·2.79: Thirty-five libraries, again serving 105,000 or more
patrons, with less than two patron visits per capita. Median expenditure:
$12.91 per capita.

At the other extreme, and again ignoring rows with fewer than
six libraries, there are four cases in which the median benefit ratio for a
given group of libraries and a given metric level is 10.5 or more:

·10.98: Six libraries serving 1,650 to 2,249 patrons and
having 20 to 29 patron visits per hour. Median expenditure: $31.66.

Those aren’t the absolute extremes, but they’re extreme cases
for groups of six or more libraries.

Singletons

The average benchmark row, except for the overall benchmark
tables, should have somewhere in the neighborhood of 49 to 64 libraries,
assuming an even distribution—but that’s ridiculous on the face of it. We’ve
already mentioned some of the highs and lows of percentages. In fact, there are
relatively few cases where one and only one library fits a bracket: 35, or
about 2% of the total. Some of these, arranged by expenditures per capita (not median:
since these are singletons, they’re actual figures):

·At the low end, one library serving 54,000 to 104,999 people has
one and only one computer for patron access (that library spent $5.33
per capita). Another, spending $5.53 per capita, serves 8,700 to 11,099 patrons
and is open less than 1,041 hours.

·A different library serving 54,000 to 104,999 patrons circulates
less than one item every ten minutes; it spends $6.06 per capita.

·One small library is unusually busy for its size and funding: A
library serving 1,150 to 1,649 people, spending $7.28 and with 45 to 69 patron
visits per hour. (No, I’m not going to see just how few hours that library is
open! These items are for fun, not to single out specific libraries.)

·Those are the only singletons with under $10 per capita funding,
but there’s one more under $11: a library serving 25,000 to 34,999 people and
spending $10.66 that has four or five PCs for patron use.

·At the high end we have a library (or system) serving 1,150 to
1,649 people that’s open 4,000 to 10,000 hours—it spends $398.04 per capita.
Another, serving 1,650 to 2,249 patrons, is also open more than 4,000
hours and spends $259.40 per capita.

·One library (or system) serving 1,650 to 2,249 people has 40 to
99 computers; it spends $207.81 per capita.

The next three in terms of spending are also libraries serving
relatively few people and open many hours or with lots of PCs (where “lots” is
relative—in one case, 20 to 39 PCs in a library serving 1,150 to 1,649 people).

The budget tables don’t
lend themselves to this kind of cross-metric nonsense, but it might be
interesting to see just how broadly spread a given bracket can be—that is, the
extremes of ratios between, say, the median and 25%ile, the 75%ile and median,
or the 75%ile and 25%ile. Heck, it might even be interesting to see how closely
the three might fall.

Differences between first quartile and median

How wide a gap is there between the first quartile or 25%ile—the
point at which ¼ of the libraries score lower—and the median (the point at
which half score lower)?

There’s one absurdly extreme case, a ratio of 152:1: PC use
per capita in libraries serving 700 to 1,149 people and spending $43 to $52.
The first quartile is 0.02 (which boils down to underreporting or essentially
no uses); the median is 1.73.

More plausibly, a number of lines show ratios of 4:1 or
greater—and they’re all either reference per capita or program attendance per
capita, both measures that can be very low. There are 14 of these in
all, including three program attendance; the two most extreme are both
reference transactions per capita, both for libraries serving 1,150 to 1,649
people: 9:1 for libraries spending $17 to $20.99, 6.67:1 for libraries spending
$5 to $11.99.

At the low end, five lines—all of them number of PCs—have
exactly the same values for first quartile and median. The next 49
lowest differences are, with one exception, all for open hours, and that’s not
too surprising (they’re all 1.1:1 or lower—e.g., for libraries serving 6,800 to
8,699 and spending $26 to $30.99, one-quarter (those between the first quartile
and the median) are open 2,217 to 2,244 hours, a ratio of 1.1 to 1. The
exception? Visitors per hour for libraries serving 5,300 to 6,799 patrons and
spending $31 to $36.99, where the first quartile is 12.27 and the median is
12.47.

Differences between median and third quartile

You won’t see extremely high ratios here. No line shows a
difference of 5:1 or greater and only four exceed 4:1:

·4.54: Reference transactions per capita for libraries
serving 1,650 to 2,249 and spending $5 to $11.99. The third quartile is 0.59
while the median is 0.13.

·4.48: Program attendance per capita for libraries serving
fewer than 700 and spending $26 to $30.99. The third quartile is 1.97—that is,
some nine libraries have programs that attract early two (or more) attendance
per patron, a high number—and the median is a more typical 0.44.

·4.45: Reference transactions per capita for libraries
serving 700 to 1,149 and spending $5 to $11.99. The third quartile is 0.49
while the median is 0.11.

·4.20: Same metric but for libraries serving fewer than 700
and spending $12 to $16.99. The third quartile is 0.21, the median 0.05.

These are all small numbers and small libraries. Indeed, the 13
largest ratios are all either reference or attendance per capita, all for
fairly small libraries.

At the low end, we’re still talking almost entirely hours—16
of the 17 smallest ratios. For example, the top quarter of libraries serving
18,500 to 24,999 and spending $73 to $399.99 are open at least 3,536 hours—but
the next quarter of those libraries (13 or 14 libraries in each case) are open
from 3,406 to 3,356 hours, a ratio of 1.04:1.

Differences between first and third quartile

What’s the ratio between the biggest and smallest measure for
the “middle half” of libraries for a given metric, size and spending?

You can guess the outlier here, the same PC use per capita
as for differences between first quartile and median, but this time the ratio
is 263.34:1—which sounds impressive but translates to 3.99 for the third
quartile and 0.02 for the first.

There are quite a few
lines with a ratio of 8 or more, and ten with 10 or more—and they’re all either
reference or program attendance per capita, once again because the
first-quartile numbers are so low.

At the low end, it’s all hours: the first 54 lines (out of
1,981 total) are hours, as are 43 of the next 44 (that is, 97 of the lowest 98
ratios). Absolute lowest? You’ve already seen the line: Libraries serving
18,500 to 24,999 and spending $73 to $399.99. Half of those libraries are open
3,200 to 3,536 hours, a ratio of 1.11:1.

Highest median for each metric

Here’s a measure that just might be meaningful. For each metric,
what are the groups of libraries that have the highest median—the largest value
that at least half of the libraries meet or exceed?

·Program attendance per capita: Five groups of libraries
manage to exceed 1.0 as a median. They’re consistently the best-funded
libraries (you have to go down to the 10th line and 0.87 as a median
to get any lower expense level), those spending $73 to $399.99. From the top,
libraries serving fewer than 700 (1.59); those serving 2,250 to 2,999 (1.19),
those serving 700 to 1,149 (1.13), those serving 3,000 to 3,999 (1.11) and
those serving 5,300 to 6,799 (1.04).

·Circulation per capita: Surprise, surprise: the top 14 all
represent libraries spending $73 to $399.99. Four of those exceed 20
circulation per capita: Libraries serving 5,300 to 6,799 (20.85), those serving
54,000 to 104,999 (20.44), those serving 2,250 to 2,999 (20.38) and those
serving 8,700 to 11,099 (20.14).

·Circulation per hour: This time, the top median points are
not all libraries spending $73 to $399.99. Eleven categories show a
median higher than two per minute (that is, 120 per hour). Of those, the top
five are libraries serving 54,000 to 104,999 and spending $73 to $399.99
(224.93), libraries serving 34,500 to 53,999 and spending $73 to $399.99
(171.89) followed by those spending $53 to $72.99 (161.13), and libraries
serving 105,000 or more and spending $73 to $399.99 (152.23) followed by those
spending $43 to $52.99 (145.38).

·Hours: Not surprisingly, the top ten are all the largest
libraries, including the overall figure and all the others except those
spending $5 to $11.99 (which come in 12th, after libraries serving
54,000 to 104,999 and spending $17 to $20.99). The order isn’t strictly by
expenditures, however: The highest median is libraries spending $31 to $35.99
(24,897), followed by those spending $73 to $399.99 (23,803), $53 to $72.99
(22.803), $36 to $42.99 (21,866) and $43 to $52.99 (21,800).

·PC use per capita: The top six are all libraries spending
$73 to $399.99 (and, after two groups at $53 to $72.99—the two smallest library
categories—there’s another four at $73 to $399.99): Libraries serving fewer
than 700 (4.30), 700 to 1,149 (3.78), 1,150 to 1,649 (3.37), 3,000 to 3,999
(2.87) and 1,650 to 2,249 (2.77).

·PCs per thousand patrons: A little too easy, as the top
six and eight of the top nine are the smallest libraries (and the seventh is
the best-funded libraries serving 700 to 1,149); this time around, there is a
perfect correlation between expenditures and the metric (with the overall
median for these libraries coming in between the top three expense categories
and the fourth and fifth). The actual medians are 11.43, 9.45, 7.53, 7.52
(overall) and 7.02.

·Computers for patron use with internet access: Also a
little too easy—the top ten are all libraries serving 105,000 or more, and
they’re in strict descending order of expenditures: 240, 228, 192, 191, and
172.5 respectively (moving down from $73-$399.99 to $31-$35.99).

·Reference transactions per capita: The top seven are all
libraries spending $73 to $399.99 per capita, and five of them exceed 1.5:
Libraries serving 18,500 to 24,999 (1.82), those serving 34,500 to 53,999
(1.77), those serving 105,000 and up (1.76), those serving 14,100 to 18,499
(1.70), and those serving 25,000 to 34,499 (1.60).

·Visits per capita: The top 14 are all libraries spending
$73 to $399.99, including the overall group (11th at 12.30). The top
five: Libraries serving fewer than 700 (15.78), those serving 5,300 to 6,799
(15.25), those serving 1,150 to 1,649 (15.04), those serving 2,250 to 2,999
(14.35) and those serving 700 to 1,149 (13.85).

·Visits per hour: This one’s a little more varied, with
only three of the top five being the best-funded libraries. From the top:
Libraries serving 54,000 to 104,999 and spending $73 to $399.99 (105.16),
libraries at that spending level serving 34,500 to 53,999 (98.48), the
same-size libraries spending $53 to $72.99 (89.27), libraries serving 54,000 to
104,999 and spending $43 to $52.99 (86.71) and libraries serving 105,000 and up
and spending $73 to $399.99 (85.95).

End of Part 1

I could go on with more
cross-chapter tidbits about individual metrics; indeed, I could probably go on
with that for another 5,000 words or more. But enough is enough: Anybody who
buys the book (now in its third and, I hope, final minor revision, as of
September 26, 2012, thanks to finding trivial errors when massaging these
independent lines) can develop their own interesting facts comparing, say,
program attendance per capita for different size libraries. This piece is
already longer than it should be and, for those without a copy of the book and
limited patience for numbers, probably an effective soporific.

That covers the first 128
pages of the book. There’s also Chapter 20, Libraries by State, which takes up
another 128 pages—with fewer metrics (five rather than 11) but a whole lot more
instances (49 rather than 17: Hawaii and the District of Columbia each have a
single public library system, so they don’t have tables as such). I may cover
the states in a similarly offhand fashion in Part 2. Or I may not.

Cites & Insights:
Crawford at Large, Volume 12, Number 10,
Whole # 154, ISSN 1534-0937, a journal of libraries, policy, technology and
media, is written and produced irregularly by Walt Crawford.

All original material in this work is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License. To view a copy of this
license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/1.0 or send a letter
to Creative Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, California 94305, USA.